c1200-1750

Vol. III: 581-582. The incident of "the testing of the silent of
speech (khamUshAn-i-goyA)." In an argument about language origins,
Akbar held that speech arose from hearing, so babies raised without hearing
speech would be unable to speak. For proof, he "had a serai
built in a place which civilized sounds did not reach. The newly born were
put into that place of experience, and honest and active guards were put
over them. For a time tongue-tied (zabAn basta) wetnurses were admitted
there. As they had closed the door of speech, the place was commonly called
the Gang MaHal (the dumb-house)." Some time later (August 1582), Akbar
was in the vicinity and "he went with a few special attendants to
the house of experiment. No cry came from that house of silence, nor was
any speech heard there. In spite of their four years they had no part of
the talisman of speech, and nothing came out except the noise of the dumb."
(Cf. versions in BEVERIDGE, BONVILLIAN
et al,CATROU, DABISTAN,
ELLIOT & DOWSON vol.V, MANUCCI,
and also comments under HODIVALA and KAI
KAUS).

p. 37 quotes from a letter by Xavier, written in 1598 from the court
of Akbar, translated from Latin: "He [Akbar] told me that nearly twenty
years ago he had thirty children shut up before they could speak, and put
guards over them so that the nurses might not teach them their language.
His object was to see what language they would talk when they grew older,
and he resolved to follow the laws and customs of the country whose language
was that spoken by the children. But his endeavours were a failure, for
none of the children came to speak distinctly."

The same passage is given on p.77 of a longer article, E.D. MACLAGAN
& R. MACLAGAN (1896) The Jesuit missions to the Emperor Akbar, J.
Asiatic Society of Bengal lxv, Pt.1, 38-113, which provides some broader
context.

Includes study of Akbar's Gang Mahal experiment (see ABUL
FAZAL, above, et al.) Quotes extensively from various contemporary
and later sources. The authors' purpose is to pursue a linguistic argument;
their comments are weak on Indian history and source evaluation.

The anonymous translation below of part of Fr. Catrou's French account
seems to include some interpretation. A section where some additional material
appears, beyond the French given above, appear below in added italics.

p. 117. "When these children appeared before the emperor, to the
surprise of every one, they were found incapable of expressing themselves
in any language, or even of uttering any articulate sounds. They had
learnt, from the example of their nurses, to substitute signs for articulate
sounds. They used only certain gestures to express their thoughts, and
these were all the means which they possessed of conveying ideas, or a
sense of their wants. They were, indeed, so extremely shy, and, at
the same time, of an aspect and manners so uncouth and uncultivated, that
it required great labour and perseverance to bring them under any discipline,
and to enable them to acquire the proper use of their tongues, of which
they had previously almost entirely denied themselves the exercise."

DABISTAN. [Muhammad Mohsin Fani.] The DabistAn or
School of Manners. Translated from the original Persian, with notes
and illustrations, transl. David SHEA & Anthony TROYER (1843), 3 vols,
Paris: Oriental Translation Fund.

The Dabistan is usually attributed to Mohsin Fani, living in Lahore
and Kashmir during the 17th century. Vol. III: 90-91 gives an account of
the Gung Mahal experiment (see ABUL FAZAL, above, et
al.):

"... a number of children were put in a place called Gangmahel,
where every thing necessary was furnished to them; but none could articulate
a letter; having remained there to their fourteenth year, they were found
to be dumb; which made it evident, that letters and language are not natural
to man, that is, cannot be used unless they have been acquired by instruction,
and it is then only that the use of conversation becomes possible."

ELLIOT, Sir Henry M. & DOWSON, John (eds) (1867-1877)
The History of India as told by its own historians. The Muhammadan
period. 8 vols, reprint 1979, Lahore: Islamic Book Service.

Vol. III, pp. 179-180, in transl. of Ziauddin Barni's account of the
reign (1300-1320) of Sultan Alauddin. The monarch's intelligence-gathering
system was such that "nobles dared not speak aloud even in the largest
palaces, and if they had anything to say they communicated by signs."
See also FULLER's translation, below.

V: 419-20, in the Tabakát-i Akbari by Nizam-u Din Ahmad, note
of "a man born without ears or any orifice of the ears, who yet heard
all that was spoken, just like people with ears. His Majesty [Akbar] was
greatly interested in the man, and settled a pension upon him."

V: 533, in the TárIkh-i BadáúnI, the Gung Mahal
experiment (see ABUL FAZAL, above, et al.) is
mentioned: "In this year (989 H.), in order to verify the circumstances
of the case [of the man who heard without ears - see V: 419-20], an order
was issued that several sucking infants should be kept in a secluded place
far from habitations, where they should not hear a word spoken. Well-disciplined
nurses were to be placed over them, who were to refrain from giving them
any instruction in speaking ... To carry out this order, about twenty sucklings
were taken from their mothers for a consideration in money, and were placed
in an empty house, which got the name of Dumb-house. After three or four
years the children all came out dumb, excepting some who died there..."

pp. 3-4. ["Secondly, with the view of making revolts impossible,
the SulTAn appointed informers (munhiyAn), and their number was
so great, that he knew the good and bad things that men did. People could
not utter a syllable without his knowledge; and whatever happened in the
houses of the AmIrs and the Maliks, of wellknown and great men, of the
officers and collectors, was, in the course of time, brought to the [p.
4] SulTAn. Nor did he treat indifferently (farU naguzasht) whatever
information was brought to him by the patrol (daur), but he made
the patrol responsible for it. The spies were so intruding, that the Maliks
in HazAr SitUn could no longer say a single word openly, and if they had
anything to say, they made use of gestures. Day and night they trembled
in their houses, lest the patrol of informers should come;..."]

See also ELLIOT & DOWSON III: 179-180, above.
The JASB editorial footnote (p.2), below Fuller's translation of this account
of Sultan Alauddin's reign, states that it is weak at this point. However
the pertinent point, i.e. about use of gestures and signs for silent communication,
is supported by Elliot and Dowson's translation.

p. 137 An institution known as Hospicio dos Desamparados at Monte
de Guirim, Bardez (north Goa) took care of gente pobre e surdos
(needy and deaf people) at least as early as 1589, and was still running
in 1797. (The date 1589 and Portuguese original wording were kindly supplied
in a personal communication by Dr da Silva Gracias in 1995, based on manuscript
sources in the Historical Archives of Goa. Dr da Silva Gracias commented,
"The province of Bardez was looked after by Franciscan missionaries.
Apparently it [the Hospice] was established to care for old missionaries
who might have gone deaf due to old age.")

GRIERSON, P.J. Hamilton (1903) The Silent Trade. A contribution to
the early history of human intercourse. Edinburgh: William Green &
Sons. x + 112 pp.

pp. 41-68 in particular, discuss practices ranging from the silent barter
of goods, described in many historical accounts around the world including
South Asia, to various non-audible systems of barter, and to more developed
sign systems. (See e.g. PYRARD, and VARTHEMA,
below).

Vol. II: 1-17 describes the reign of the deaf ruler, Kanthirava Narasaraja
Wodeyar, who "suffered from the disability of being born deaf and
dumb" (p. 2). Only son of Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar, he was born 27 Dec.
1672, installed as ruler on 30 Nov. 1704, and died 18 Feb. 1714. "Though
not possessed of the exceptional personal capacity and talents of ChikkadEvarAja
Wodeya, and despite the infirmities he suffered from, it must be said to
the credit of KaNThIrava that he was able to preserve the glorious traditions
of his predecessors." (p. 17) See also WILKS.

HODIVALA, Shahpurshah Hormasji (1939) Studies in
Indo-Muslim History. A critical commentary on Elliot and Dowson's History
of India as Told by its Own Historians, Bombay.

pp. 561-562. Hodivala suggests that a passage in the Qabusnama
of Kai Kaus, may have been the origin of Akbar's language experiment: "Human
beings learn to speak only by hearing speech and the proof of it is this.
If a child is born and if it is taken to a place underground and fed with
milk and bred up there, and if the mother and nurse do not speak to it
and do not allow it to hear the speech of any other person, it will undoubtedly
be dumb when it grows up." (See KAI KAUS below,
with a longer extract in French translation.)

Vol. III, pp. 727-728. The great African traveller spent several years
at the court of the Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq, at Delhi and Daulatabad.
In the Deccan in 1339, "one of the associates of Qutlu Khan namely
Ali Shah Kar (Kar means 'deaf'), had revolted against the Sultan. He was
a gallant man of fine figure and character, and having taken possession
of Badrakut he made it the capital of his kingdom." However, the
Sultan sent Qutlugh Khan with a large force against Ali Shah Kar, who was
forced to surrender. He was pardoned but exiled to Ghazna. After some time
he tried to return home, but was caught and executed.

The 'Cabous Namè' (in English: Kabusnama, Qabus-nama, etc), written
in Persian in 1082-83 CE, was an early example of the class of literature
intended as instruction manuals for princes. (See article on Kay KA'Us
by C.E. Bosworth, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn.) A passage in
Ch. VII (on "De la Recherche de l'Excellence dans l'art du bien dire")
suggests that a child deprived of all language exposure during infancy
will grow up mute, giving also the example of congenitally deaf persons.

HODIVALA (see previous item) has suggested that this work may have been
the origin of Akbar's language experiment. The numerous extant manuscripts
suggest that the Qabus-nama was quite widely used. It is plausible that
it played some part in Akbar's education, or was read to him at court,
and that the idea stayed in his mind. However, this would not so readily
fit with the motive indicated by MANUCCI, and by Xavier (see BEVERIDGE),
of discovering which language the children would speak.

Vol. I: 142-143. A contemporary account of Akbar's Gung Mahal experiment
(see ABUL FAZAL, above). The purpose was "to know
what language a child would speak who had not the use of speech or any
master to teach it. ... he ordered the erection of a house with many rooms
at a distance of six leagues from the city of Agrah, and directed them
to place in it twelve children, who should be retained there till the age
of twelve years. An injunction was laid on everyone that, under pain of
death, no one should speak a word to them or allow them to communicate
with each other." Twelve years later the children were produced to
Akbar. On being questioned, "they answered just nothing at all. On
the contrary, they were timid, frightened, and fearful, and such they continued
to be for the rest of their lives."

IV: 98-99. Towards the end of his reign, Aurangzeb disputed the right
of a Prince of Srirangapatanam (Kanthi Rae, the 'Dumb Rajah') to rule,
because he was deaf - though this may have been merely an excuse for trying
to take over his territory.

Translation first made in the 1780s (dedicated "to Warren Hastings,
Esq., late Governor-General of Bengal") of a highly influential and
detailed commentary by a 12th century CE lawyer from Marghinan, east of
Bukhara, taking account of the major legal schools of Islam. His work was
used over many centuries in the Middle East and among Muslim legal authorities
in South Asia.

Vol. IV, Book LIII (the final chapter, in this version, pp. 707-708)
discusses in some detail the legal capacities of dumb persons, under two
broad heads:

(i) "The intelligible signs of a dumb person suffice to verify
his bequests, and render them valid; but not those of a person merely deprived
of speech". In discussion under the first head, it is stated that
the learned doctors of law "...conceive a natural difference between
a person originally dumb, and one who merely labours under a recent incapacity
of speech, for various reasons. - First, signs are not cognizable, unless
they be habitual and their meaning ascertained, which is the case with
the signs of a dumb person, but not with those of one who has merely lost
his speech. (Still, however, our doctors hold that if this person be so
long deprived of speech as to render signs habitual to him, and their meaning
ascertained, he then stands in the same predicament with a dumb person
in this particular)."

(ii) "A dumb person may execute marriage, divorce, purchase or
sale, and sue for or incur punishment, by means of either signs or writings;
but he cannot thereby sue for or incur retaliation". Provision was
made for cases where "a dumb person is capable of either writing intelligibly,
or making intelligible signs". After an argument demonstrating that
the dumb person's written deeds are valid and cognizable, "With respect
to signs made by a dumb person, they are recognize[d] in the cases of marriage,
divorce, and so forth (as mentioned above), from necessity, since those
are matters in which the right of the individual alone is concerned, and
which are not restricted to any particular form of words".

See also vol. I, Book 4, chapters I, IX and X (pp. 76, 119-120, 125).
In the latter case, concerning punishment of someone who may have made
a false accusation under oath, "the argument of our doctors is that
the signs of a dumb person are not altogether free from doubt, and punishment
is removed by any circumstances of doubt."

(This 12th century recognition of the signing deaf person's legal capacity
in the Muslim world, even with its limitations, compares rather favourably
with the positions described by the papal physician Paulus Zacchias (1584-1659)
based on European Christian authorities from the 14th through 16th centuries;
see Paul F. Cranefield & Walter Federn (1970) Paulus Zacchias on mental
deficiency and deafness, Bull. New York Academy of Medicine 46:
3-21, on pp. 14-21.)

PYRARD, François [1619] The Voyage of François
Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas and Brazil,
... from the third French edition of 1619, ed. and transl. Albert GRAY &
H.C.P. BELL (1888). 2 vols. London: Hakluyt.

II: 178-179, silent, concealed bargaining amidst the vast crowds buying
and selling at Goa around 1608: "they are wont to make signs under
their silk or cotton mantles, which are worn like our cloaks: so touching
the hands thus privily, they give one another to understand by the fingers
at what price they are willing to buy or sell, without the others knowing
or being aware of anything." (Footnote refers to the same at Calicut,
see VARTHEMA; and more generally across India in Tavernier's
Voyages, Pt.II, Bk.II, ch. xi).

I: 168-169, description, with footnoted additions, of Indian bargaining
conducted by finger signs hidden under a cloth, at Calicut. See PHILLOTT,
below, et al.

WILKS, Mark (1869) Historical sketches of the South of India, in an
attempt to trace the history of Mysoor. 2nd edition. 2 vols. London.

I: 139-140, "Canty Reva Raj. The son of the late Raja was born
deaf and dumb (and thence called Mook Arsoo, the dumb sovereign) an incapacity
which under a less settled government would have excluded him from the
throne; but he succeeded without opposition through the influence of the
minister Tremalayengar [TirumalaiyangAr], who survived his old master
no more than a year and a half. The vigour and regularity of the late long
reign [of Chikkadevaraja Wodeyar] continued to be perceptible in the administration."
(See also HAYAVADANA RAO.)